Products provided in rolled form (e.g. a roll of adhesive tape) are commonly prepared by applying (e.g., by coating) a liquid composition to a major surface of an unrolled substrate (e.g. a web), at least partially curing or drying the composition on the substrate, and then winding the substrate bearing the cured or dried composition onto a cylindrical core or mandrel in order to produce a roll of the coated product. The roll may be subsequently slit into rolls of smaller width by cutting through the rolled substrate in a direction perpendicular to the major surface.
However, some coating processes are not directed at coating a liquid onto a substrate, but rather, apply a vapor phase material to the substrate. One such exemplary vapor phase coating process is Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). Atomic Layer Deposition was originally developed for use in fabricating thin film electroluminescent (TFEL) flat-panel displays. Interest in ALD has increased significantly over the years, focusing mainly on silicon-based substrates (e.g. wafers) useful in fabricating microelectronics due to its ability to produce very thin, conformable films with control of the composition and thickness of these films at the atomic level.
ALD has also been used to coat filler particles present in a dental composite, as described in International Patent Publication No. WO2009/045752 (Kalgutkar, et al.). Recently, ALD has been used to coat discrete substrate sheets (U.S. Pat. No. 6,713,177 B2, George et al.), to coat fibrous substrates (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0137043, Parsons et al.), and to coat substrate webs using a continuous roll-to-roll web-handling system (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0189900, Dickey et al.).